Katharine of Aragon

Published6th December 2014

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Katharine was born in Alcala de Henares, Spain on the night
of 15 – 16 December 1485. She was the fifth and youngest child of the
‘Catholic
Kings’
, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. The marriage of Katharine’s
parents, whilst not formally uniting their respective countries had created a
new and powerful European kingdom of Spain. It was the goal of these monarchs,
to increase Spanish power both within the peninsula itself by reconquering the
Moorish kingdom of Granada and abroad through pressing Aragonese claims to
Naples. Most importantly, they sought to prevent a newly powerful France from
dominating Italy.

Ferdinand of Aragon (1452 - 1516), Katharine's father

A key component of the sovereigns’ strategy was the marital
alliances that they arranged for their children. Katharine, as fourth daughter,
was of perhaps less political importance and therefore her betrothal in 1489 to
the son of
Henry VII of England was in the nature of a gamble. Henry had only
established himself as
King of England from the Wars of the Roses in the year
of Katherine’s birth and in 1489 it was still a possibility that the fledgling
Tudor dynasty might be overthrown.

Nevertheless in the Treaty of Medina del Campo 1489 it was
agreed that Katherine would marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, and would travel to
England when she was 14. Over the following ten years further negotiations took
place and the young couple were married by proxy.

Isabella of Castile (1451 - 1504), Katharine's mother

Katharine’s brother, Juan, had been married at the age of 17
to Marguerite of Austria. Their respective siblings, Juana, and Philip,
Duke of Burgundy, were also married. Juan and Marguerite took to married life
with gusto and when the young man died within six months his demise was, in
part, attributed to too much sexual exertion at a young age. The shock of this
death and the grief that it caused to the Spanish Royal family should not be
overlooked in considering Katharine’s own marital history.

The Spanish Princess left Spain in autumn 1501, arriving at
Plymouth on 8
th October. Travelling slowly towards London, the party
was met at Dogmersfield in Hampshire by
Henry VII and Prince Arthur, who had
been summoned from
Ludlow where he was presiding over the Council of Wales. Arthur
had turned 15 on 20
th September.

Arthur, Prince of Wales (1486 - 1502), Katharine's first husband

The couple, unable to converse other than in Latin, were
briefly introduced before etiquette demanded that the bride be kept separate
from her groom until the wedding day. Katharine was lodged at
Lambeth Palace in
London until the wedding was celebrated at St Paul’s Cathedral on 14
th
December. She was led to the altar by her groom’s 10-year-old brother, Henry,
Duke of York.

The marriage of the young couple was extremely popular in
both court and country. The festivities to mark the occasion were lavish and
continued with jousting, feasting and dancing. Arthur himself had either little
taste or little energy for dancing, performing only once, whilst the Duke of
York showed himself as a boisterous performer.

As was customary the young couple were put to bed in public,
well aware that their primary duty was to produce sons to inherit the English
throne. Not long after the marriage it was decided that Arthur should return to
his duties in the Marches of Wales and there was some debate as to whether
Katharine should accompany him. It was not uncommon for a young couple to consummate
the marriage once and then be separated as too much sexual activity at a young
age was believed injurious to the health. Eventually it was decided that Katharine
should go.

Ludlow Castle

By March Arthur was seriously ill and he died on 2 April
1502. Katharine returned to London and debate began as to her future. Initially
Queen Isabella wanted her daughter to return home but
Henry VII was reluctant
to see the vast jointure that Katherine would have been entitled to of one
third of the revenues of the principality of Wales and the Duchy of Cornwall sailing
away – particularly as he had not yet received the whole of Katharine’s dowry.

Katharine as a young woman

A marriage was mooted for Katharine with the young Duke of
York – some five and a half years younger than her. For such a marriage a papal
dispensation was necessary, the type depending on whether or not the first
marriage had been consummated. Initially there was doubt as to the status of
Katharine’s virginity as Katharine’s confessor and her principal lady, Doña
Elvira Manuel, gave conflicting accounts.

The Spanish Sovereigns believed Doña Elvira, and wrote clearly that although Katharine was a virgin, they would request a dispensation covering the case of consummation because they feared that at a later date the English King might try to wriggle out of the bargain. The initial dispensation gave consent for Katharine and Henry to marry on the assumption that she had consummated her marriage to his brother whilst an accompanying Papal brief that appears only to have been dispatched to Spain enlarged on this with the insertion of the words ‘perhaps consummated’.

Despite the agreement, Henry VII dragged his feet and
Ferdinand and he continued to quarrel over Katharine’s dowry. In 1504 Queen
Isabella died, and the crowns of Spain broke apart as her daughter, Juana,
Duchess of Burgundy inherited. It soon
became apparent that Juana’s husband Philip intended to dominate both his wife
and Castile, to the detriment of Ferdinand’s position.

Katharine’s position became increasingly difficult as she
did not have sufficient funds to maintain her household without encroaching on
plate and jewels that
Henry VII claimed were a part of her dowry and she lived
a miserable existence, sending increasingly emotional letters to her father
requesting help, which Ferdinand largely ignored.

Henry VIII (1492 - 1547) as Prince of Wales

The marriage between Katharine and Henry should have taken
place in 1505 when
Henry reached 14, the age of consent for a boy. The prince
made a formal retraction of his betrothal as it had been made during his
minority. Nevertheless negotiations for a marriage continued to take place.

The Gordian knot was finally cut in 1509 when Henry VII
died. Within a few weeks of becoming King the young Henry had married Katharine
and the two were crowned together on 24
th June 1509. Over the next
few years
Henry and Katharine appear to live an almost idyllic life as a happy
young couple in the first flush of love and power. They danced and hunted
vigorously, patronised musicians and scholars.

The couple were also politically close as Henry, seeking to
establish himself as a new Henry V, allied with Ferdinand of Aragon to invade
France. Before
Henry led his army in France, he appointed Katharine as Regent –
a role she carried out extremely effectively, including working with the Earl of
Surrey to repel the invasion of
James IV of Scotland, who as the ally of France
had invaded northern England.
James was defeated at Flodden in one of England’s
most comprehensive victories against its northern neighbour and Katharine
identified herself very closely with it.

Unfortunately, matters did not go quite so well in France.
Although
Henry won territory – the first territory won by the English in France
since 1453, it was of little strategic value and he was routinely let down by
Ferdinand. Ferdinand’s behaviour undoubtedly weakened Katherine’s political
influence, which gradually began to be replaced by that of
Henry’s minister,
Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal and Archbishop of York.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1473 - 1530)

Wolsey was by nature opposed to war – it was costly and
wasteful. He looked for peace and political alliances, including with the
French, whom Katharine had been brought up to see as the enemy. Katharine resented
his influence, personally and politically.

Another problem was creeping into the royal marriage – the
lack of children. Katharine became pregnant within a few weeks of her marriage
but miscarried a daughter in early 1510. A son was born on 1
st January
1511,
Henry Duke of Cornwall, but he died within two months. There were
probably one or two further miscarriages or stillbirths before Katharine
finally gave birth to a child who would survive to adulthood –
Mary, born 18th
February 1516. A final pregnancy in 1518 resulted in a stillborn daughter.

By 1525, Henry had concluded that there would be no more
children – although she was barely 40 Katharine seems to have reached the
menopause and had not conceived in seven years.

For Henry, only the second in his dynasty, to have a son was
his paramount duty. Despite the example of Katharine’s mother, Isabella of
Castile, and the very successful regencies of Anne of Beaujeu in France and
Katharine’s sister-in-law, Marguerite of Austria, in the Netherlands, the idea
of a woman sovereign was unacceptable to the King. He had had an illegitimate
son in 1519 and from this he inferred that he was capable of having healthy
sons and that there must be another problem afflicting his marriage to Katharine.

Two other events now occurred that created the perfect storm
for Katharine’s marriage. In 1526 her nephew, now
King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, who had been betrothed to Princess Mary, broke off the
match to marry her niece, Isabella of Portugal. The alliance that Katharine
represented had become politically worthless. And, in an event much closer to
home,
Henry had fallen violently in love with Katharine’s maid-of-honour, Anne Boleyn.

Henry now sought to be released from his marriage with
Katharine. It would be unfair to
Henry to suggest that his concern that he had
broken God’s law by marrying his brother’s wife was completely cynical, only
trumped up to rid himself of unwanted spouse. He was a genuinely religious man
and is very likely to have sought understanding in the Bible for his problems.
Nevertheless, the spur of the love affair undoubtedly drove him on – although
we shouldn’t assume that he immediately intended to marry
Anne.

Anne Boleyn (c.1501 - 1536)

It was certainly not unusual for Popes to grant powerful
Kings ways out of undesirable marriages, and had circumstances in Europe been
different, Clement VII might well have looked favourably on
Henry’s request.
Unfortunately for
Henry, the rising tide of Lutheranism challenging Papal
authority made the Pope less likely to rule that his predecessor had acted
outside his powers in granting the dispensation.

This reluctance was compounded by the fact that Rome had
been comprehensively sacked in 1527 by the troops of the Emperor Charles, who
now dominated Italy. Charles was disinclined to see his aunt cast off and his
cousin
Mary disinherited – he may have declined to marry the child but that did
not mean that a cousin who was likely to be Queen of England wasn’t a useful branch
in his family tree.

Clement agreed to a trial of the marriage in England,
presided over by
Cardinal Wolsey (who Katherine almost certainly wrongly,
blamed for stirring up the matter in the first place) and Cardinal Campeggio.

The trial took place at Blackfriars in 1529 and Katharine’s
speech to
Henry, against all legal etiquette, is one of the most famous in
Tudor history. In it, she declared that her marriage was valid as her previous
marriage had not been consummated, she firmly denied that the loss of the many
children that she and
Henry had had was her fault, she reiterated her faithful
and loving service as his wife and finally, declared that she would not accept
the jurisdiction of anyone less than the Pope himself. She then sailed
majestically out of the court, refusing orders to return. No doubt the King was
uneasily aware of the cheers with which their beloved Queen was greeted by the
waiting crowd.

Katharine and Henry’s marriage limped along in public for
another two years, during which time she continued to be treated as Queen.
Eventually in 1531, she was banished from court and forbidden from seeing
either
Henry or her daughter again. Over the next two years Henry determined to
take matters into his own hands and in January 1533 he married
Anne Boleyn in
secret.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury (1489 - 1556)

In April 1533 the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas
Cranmer, convened another court at Dunstable at which he declared that Katharine’s
marriage had been null and void from the beginning. In 1534 the Acts of Supremacy
and
Succession made it a criminal offence to refer to Katharine as Queen: she
was demoted to her previous rank of Princess Dowager of Wales.

Katharine absolutely rejected the validity of Cranmer’s
annulment of
Henry’s marriage to Anne. She continued to write to the Pope
requesting him to confirm her marriage and she refused to communicate in any
way with anyone who did not address her as Queen.

She was moved further away from London, eventually to
Kimbolton Castle, under the guardianship of Sir Edmund Bedingfield. In January
1536, when it became apparent that she was dying,
Henry permitted a last visit
from Eustace Chapuys, the Emperor’s ambassador – whether as a gesture of
compassion or to demonstrate to the Emperor that his aunt was not being ill-treated
must be a matter of conjecture. He certainly would not permit their daughter,
Mary, to visit her mother. After Chapuys’ departure, Maria de Salinas, Lady
Willoughby, who had come from Spain with Katharine thirty-six years before,
lied her way into see her former mistress, who died on 7th January 1536.

Henry VIII's letter to Lady Bedingfield with instructions for Katharine of Aragon's funeral is at Oxburgh Hall

There is a letter which purports to have been written by
Katharine on her deathbed. Its genuineness has been questioned but the whole
tone of it and its last line would certainly seem to reflect Katharine’s life
and beliefs. She requests her husband to pay her servants, to love their
daughter and to take care of his soul. It ends with the words ‘
lastly I make
this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things
.’

Katharine was buried honourably, in Peterborough Abbey,
although in a funeral suitable for a Princess Dowager of Wales, rather than a Queen.
The chief mourner was Lady Eleanor Brandon,
Henry VIII’s niece, accompanied by
other ladies, including Lady Bedingfield who received instructions from the King
as to her role.

Katharine’s monument,
renewed in the 19
th century, is still honoured, and the arms of England
and Spain were re-hung in the 20
th century on the orders of Queen
Mary of Teck, wife of King George V.